Department of Justice

The news media's demand for information was the "most significant challenge encountered in this investigation," St. Louis County prosecution Robert P. McCulloch said Monday while announcing a grand jury's decision not to indict Ferguson, Missouri, Police Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown. (Poynter) | Al Tompkins dug into the grand jury report. (Storify) | Some highlights from the testimony. (AP) | I watched CNN last night and saw reporters get hit with smoke and/or tear gas (St. Louis County Police said they used both, smoke first). | CNN's Don Lemon and Chris Cuomo got hit by tear gas. (Mediaite) | Protesters grabbed and broke a Fox News camera.

FBI director James B. Comey wrote a letter to The New York Times saying an undercover officer investigating some bomb threats "portrayed himself as an employee of The Associated Press, and asked if the suspect would be willing to review a draft article about the threats and attacks, to be sure that the anonymous suspect was portrayed fairly." (NYT) | Statement from AP Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll: "This latest revelation of how the FBI misappropriated the trusted name of The Associated Press doubles our concern and outrage, expressed earlier to Attorney General Eric Holder, about how the agency's unacceptable tactics undermine AP and the vital distinction between the government and the press." (AP) | Previously, we learned the FBI "created a fake news story on a bogus Seattle Times web page to plant software in the computer of a suspect." (The Seattle Times) | Comey says the operation "was proper and appropriate under Justice Department and F.B.I.

In a meeting with journalists to discuss Justice Department media guidelines Tuesday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder told participants, “As long as I’m attorney general, no reporter who is doing his job is going to go to jail. As long as I’m attorney general, someone who is doing their job is not going to get prosecuted.”

The Justice Department said Holder’s remarks restated a “longtime assertion that, as long as he is in office, no journalist will be prosecuted or go to prison for performing ordinary news-gathering activities,” Kevin Johnson reports in USA Today. Read more

The U.S. Department of Justice’s new revised guidelines tightening government access to journalists’ records officially take effect this week. Yet the protections are not absolute, leaving some important exceptions in the hands of the Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder to circumvent the safeguards, particularly when it comes to classified information deemed potentially harmful.

“This case has been transformed into a potential constitutional showdown over the First Amendment and the role of the press in the United States because of the Obama Administration’s aggressive use of the powers of the government to try to rein in independent national security reporting,” Risen told Times Public Editor Margaret Sullivan. Read more

The $1.5 billion sale and assumption of $715 million in Belo debt would expand Gannett’s TV holdings from 23 to 43 stations, the media companies said last summer.

The proposed agreement emerged at the same time as the filing of a civil antitrust lawsuit Monday in the District of Columbia’s U.S. District Court to block Gannett’s acquisition of Belo. The agreement — which would resolve the concerns alleged in the lawsuit — would require Gannett and third-party operator Sander Media LLC to divest themselves of Belo-owned KMOV-TV. Read more